Tesla, Mercedes takes the opposite approach to touchscreen video games in mobile cars

Currently, both Tesla and Mercedes vehicles allow some video games to be played on the main touchscreen while the car is driving. But the way the two companies reacted showed a world of difference.

Mercedes said it made a mistake in allowing sports games — games that only happen in a few hundred cars — and has issued voluntary recalls to address the issue.

Tesla allowed mobile games to be updated over-the-air this summer, but has yet to take any public steps to address the issue, but NHTSA said this week it was aware of the situation.

Tesla is in many ways at odds with the traditional auto industry, from CEO Elon Musk's tweets to becoming an all-electric vehicle maker in the early 2000s. The latest example of Tesla's different approach is the way it and Daimler each responded to recent safety and in-car entertainment issues. Specifically, both Tesla and Mercedes allow people to play video games on the car's touchscreen while the vehicle is in motion, although Mercedes sees it as a mistake and is recalling the vehicle to fix the problem, which Tesla has yet to do. Taking Tesla as an example, the Associated Press video clip below shows that drivers can easily play while driving.

Minimizing distracted driving has been a top priority for U.S. safety regulators for years, even as cars become more connected and in-car screens multiply and continue to get bigger. For example, the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee could have two rear seat infotainment screens and one screen in the dashboard where front seat passengers can interact with the navigation system the driver sees and perform actions such as watches to stream Amazon Fire TV content. It is important to know that the design of this screen prevents you from seeing a single lit pixel from the driver's position.

As for Mercedes, the German automaker recalled four models — the 2021 S580 and 2022 EQS450, EQS 580 and S500 — when it found that some of the vehicles on the road were programmed to be "incorrectly configured" on Mercedes-Benz's back-end servers and the VEHICLEs' MBUX infotainment systems. The error allows "vehicle occupants to activate these functions (including TVs and digital user manuals and games) while the vehicle is in motion. The issue involved only 227 vehicles, but Mercedes recalled them because "if a occupant actively selects a feature or app while the vehicle is in motion, it can cause a driver to be distracted, increasing the risk of a crash," the company told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). mountain.

Tesla, on the other hand, has been allowing video games to be played in some of its vehicles for years. That's fine when the car is parked, but this summer, the over-the-air software update allowed three video games to be played even while the car was on the move. Tesla's Autopilot system isn't fully autonomous driving technology, and it doesn't have driver monitoring to tell Tesla if it's front-seat passengers or drivers playing these games.